


Six Years and Seven Days

by biextroverts



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: English translation, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-02-24 01:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13203348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biextroverts/pseuds/biextroverts
Summary: The menacing red silhoutte of the devasted earth reminds them each day that their exile has just begun. Stuck on what remains of the Ark, Bellamy, Raven, Murphy, Monty, Harper, Emori, and Echo must learn to survive together, far from the ground and from their people.





	1. Free Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [6 ans et 7 jours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158030) by [Luumineusement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luumineusement/pseuds/Luumineusement). 



> Huge thanks to Luumineusement for giving me permission to translate this fic into English! For more notes, head over to their fic in the original French.

36 days  
  
          The sensation was always strange, even a month after the fact. Everything around her seemed unstable, even the floor beneath her feet; her own body felt unstable – too light, too weak. Monty had taken the time to explain it to her – the absence of gravity in space, how the Ring of the Ark could recreate it artificially– but it was all too odd for Echo’s mind. She was a grounder. She’s been raised on the Earth, where one walked with two feet anchored in the soil, and life here, on board the Ark, had no meaning for her. She let herself wander from day to day like a sleepwalker, without real control over her thoughts or movements.

  
          She’d tried to make herself useful during the first few days, even tendering her assistance to Monty and Raven, although, in her heart, she already knew how they’d respond to the offer. She’d never forget the looked they’d exchanged; their eyes and their silence had said everything. She wasn’t useful to them. They saw her like a child. No, worse – they saw her as a person incapable of learning.

  
          Everyone besides Echo adapted well to life on the Ark. Skaikru was in their element, of course; they’d been born orbiting Earth, had learned to survive in space, had lived on the Ark all their lives. Existence here was second nature to them, a mechanism they had no need to learn anew upon their return. They moved about with ease, their movements perfectly controlled. And each of them had their place on the Ark.

  
          Echo had remained silent during that first month, but she’d observed her companions. Monty and Raven seemed to be the most intelligent of the group; every time there was a problem that needed solving, they were the ones who spoke the most. Raven was often the one who came up with the ideas, but Monty assisted her; it was their conversation that allowed Raven to put her finger on a solution to whatever trouble was at hand. More often than not, Echo couldn’t understand what they said, but she had a feeling she wasn’t alone in that.

  
          She’d noticed even from their brief interactions on Earth that Bellamy acted as a leader – not like a king or a Commander should, but like an older brother who ensured harmony among the younger members of his family. Bellamy had no need to give orders; the others followed him without even a word, somehow knowing, almost instinctively, what was expected of them.

  
          Echo had a harder time pinning down the last two members of Skaikru. There was a young woman, Harper, who Echo gathered to be Monty’s girlfriend. Harper seemed strong, both physically and mentally, but she was very quiet when they were all together, and was probably the one most prone to following Bellamy; as far as Echo had seen, she’d never protested a single one of his demands. Unlike Murphy, the final member of Skaikru.

  
          Murphy was the only member of Skaikru who dared to contradict Bellamy. Echo had sensed a certain tension between the two men since the beginning of their time on the Ark. Murphy seemed to talk back to Bellamy more out of habit than out of genuine disagreement, however, and, like the others, he always eventually gave in to Bellamy and did what needed to be done without too much complaint. He had the air of a man who appreciated being alone from time to time, and more than once Echo had run into him with his nose stuck in a book, indifferent to the goings on around him.

  
          The last member of their group was not Skaikru. Like Echo, Emori has been born on Earth, but she didn’t belong to any clan. Echo had noticed the way the other young woman hid her left hand beneath a thick wrap of fabric and had together the pieces; Emori was a Frikdreina, a mutant, one of those outcast children abandoned in infancy so as not to sully their families’ bloodlines. Skaikru, though, made nothing of the fact that Emori was a Frikdreina. She was Murphy’s girlfriend, and the only one to call him John, but it was not just him; the other members of Skaikru treated Emori with warmth and respect as well. Emori had grown particularly close to Raven during their first month on the Ark.  
Echo couldn’t understand. Emori had succeeded in adapting to life in space, despite her mutation, despite the fact that she, too, had been a complete stranger to Skaikru’s world. As it was as though she’d become one of their own.

  
          So why hadn’t Echo?

  
          Each day passed on the Ark was a slow agony. Echo didn’t have the same hope as the others; she didn’t believe they would return to Earth in five years. She was made more of reason, and she knew that they were going die aboard this ghost ship that smelled of death and decay. Earth was dead and gone for good and Echo hadn’t even been there for its last breath. She’d fled like a coward, turned her back on the nourishing, maternal planet that had seen her raised to a woman. That had raised her to a woman.

  
          The Skaikru didn’t understand. They were sure Earth would reborn; the planet’s red silhouette would one day become green and beautiful once more. They were arrogant and naive. They’d spent a couple of months on Earth and thought they knew the planet intimately. None of them were Grounders; they were just like Octavia, Bellamy’s supposedly “native” sister, who would never truly be the new Commander, even though she had survived Praimfaya.

  
          Lounging for hours on end in her bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, Echo had made her decision. She would end it today. She’d brought her dagger with her; it had been a present from her father when she’d finally become bodyguard to the then-prince Roan of Azgeda.

  
          Roan. Thinking of her king made her heart ache. The whole time she’d been part of his guard, she’s been prepared to die for him. It would have been an honorable death, a warrior’s death. She’d been prepared to sacrifice anything for him. She’d felt no remorse when she’d decided to give him an edge in the Conclave, although it had earned her the worst possible sentence: exile, life apart from her king for the rest of her mortal days.

  
          Now Roan was dead. She wasn’t going to tarry to rejoin him.

  
          In one swift movement, Echo rose from the bed and turned to look right. She could see the Earth through the single widow across the room. It was huge, red, and menacing. And it was dead.

  
          The few things she’d brought to space with her sat on the little metal table beside her bed. Echo approached the thing slowly, almost with reverence. There were the clothes in which she’d arrived. A necklace of stone and bones that her mother had given her before she’s left home. A little pot of white paste with which she’s painted her face before battle. And her dagger, magnificent, with its engraved handle of ivory. It had been a long time since the thing had shone white; when her father had passed it down to her, the handle had already been stained red and brown as a testament to the many lives the blade had taken.

          Echo gripped the dagger in her right hand. She remembered each curve, each hollow carved into the cold ivory. The blade was a warrior’s weapon, and, like a warrior, she would perish on a warrior’s blade, even if she had to hold the weapon herself.

  
          She stood in the center of the room, facing the Earth. Her heart pounded. The dagger trembled in her hand. A single tear fell from the corner of one of her eyes as she lifted the blade to her chest.

  
          There was a sound at her back, and the door flew open.

  
          “Don’t!”

  
          Bellamy. Of course.

  
          “How did you know?” she demanded, not turning around.

  
          “There are cameras in each room on the Ark. Question of security.”

  
          Echo didn’t know what the “cameras”of which Bellamy spoke were, but she didn’t care. She turned, dagger never leaving her trembling right hand, to face Bellamy. His hair had grown during their time on the Ark, but he shaved meticulously. His eyes were tired, and he was somewhat thin. They were all somewhat thin.

  
          “You can’t make my decisions for me,” Echo said coldly. “Leave me be now.”

  
          “You don’t have any right to do this!” Bellamy returned, his tone furious.

  
          Echo laughed disdainfully. Her grip on the dagger tightened, and her hand ceased to tremble. “You speak of rights,” she said. “It’s my right to decide whether to take my own life, and not yours.”

          Bellamy didn’t respond immediately, but nor did he leave the room. He continued to stare at Echo, brows furrowed over his dark eyes. He took a step forward, hands extended slightly. He wanted to disarm her, Echo realized, and she retreated a step, but locked her knees in preparation to defend herself.

  
          “Echo,” Bellamy started, hands out towards her.

  
          “You don’t understand,” Echo said. “I’m not Skaikru. I’m not made for life in space. I’m not strong enough to…”  
Her voice caught in her throat. No, she wasn’t strong. She’d spent a whole month hidden away. Taking her own life had no honor in it; even if was with a warrior’s weapon, it was not a warrior’s death. She was weak. She’s been weak to love Roan, and it had earned her exile. She hadn’t been able to protect her king from death as she’d been supposed to with her life.

  
          “You’re strong,” Bellamy said softly, and he took another step forward.

  
          “That’s not the kind of strength I need right now.”

  
          It hadn’t been more than a whisper, a thought shared with Bellamy in spite of herself. Echo felt so weak right now, the exhaustion she’d built up over weeks finally making itself known. She’d hardly eaten during her month in space. She met Bellamy’s eyes. He no longer looked angry; in fact, he seemed almost worried.

  
          Echo let herself fall to the floor, overwhelmed by exhaustion and grief. Weak.

  
          “I wasn’t made for life here,” she repeated, her face turned down. “I don’t have a place.”

  
          “You know who would have had her place on the Ark?” Bellamy asked, kneeling in front of Echo. “Clarke. If anyone should be here, it’s her. She sacrificed her life so we could live; the least we can do to honor her is to survive. Whatever happens.”

  
          “She sacrificed herself for you, not me,” Echo wanted to retort, but the words didn’t come. There was something familiar in Bellamy’s eyes, the same look Echo saw in her own when she looked at her reflection in a mirror. Bellamy loved Wanheda, in the same way as she loved Roan. She and Bellamy were similar, she realized.

  
          “We need you here,” Bellamy said. “Everyone here has a place on the Ark. Emori’s found hers, despite not being Skaikru. And you’ll find yours as well.”

  
          “I have nothing but my strength.”

          “And that will serve us well when the moment comes. Meanwhile, find something to do to occupy yourself, heart and soul. That’s what will allow you to survive.”

  
          Bellamy reached out with his right hand and took the dagger. Echo didn’t move to stop him. What good would it do? Bellamy inspected the weapon for a moment, tracing the carved lines in the ivory with his fingertips, observing the sharpness of the blade.

  
          “You don’t need this here,” Bellamy said. “Whether you believe it or not, you’re surrounded by friends. Now that we’re all seven of us on the Ark, we’ll need to be as one to survive the next five years.”

  
          “Friends?” Echo uttered. “Don’t deceive yourself, Bellamy. I will never be a friend of Skaikru. Not after everything that happened on Earth.”

          “All right,” Bellamy said with a slight smile. “Maybe friends was a strong word. But you’ll realize quickly that we have to work together, as a group, in order to survive. Skaikru, Grounder, all that has no place now. Learn to open up a bit; you’ll be surprised at the results.”  
Bellamy stood and set the dagger gently on the table. Lowering his eyes to meet Echo’s, he extended his hand to her. “The first step is to come take meals with the rest of us.”

  
          Despite the cries of protest from her heart, Echo took Bellamy’s hand. She was exhausted. She needed to eat, and to take up her training again. Once she was on her feet, Bellamy tossed her a gray jacket that had been lying in a corner of the room.

  
          “Layer up. It’s cold on the Ark, and we don’t have enough medicine to support people falling ill every few days.”

  
          The rest of the group were sitting around a single table when Bellamy and Echo entered the cafeteria. If the others watched them from the corners of their eyes, no one saw fit to comment on Echo’s uncommon appearance. They were in the middle of eating some of what remained of the food; they’d only been able to fit a few boxes of canned goods and packs of dehydrated fare into the rocket, and their stock would soon run out, though at least it only had to hold them until the hydraulic farms were operational.

  
          Bellamy and Echo took their seats at the end of the table in silence. Raven and Monty were arguing about one of the modifications needed to be made on the hydraulic farms, and, though Murphy and Emori did not speak, they seemed to communicate solely with their eyes. That a Grounder and a sky person could be so unified was astounding to Echo, and probably always would be. Harper didn’t speak, either, but she turned to Bellamy and exchanged a look with him.

  
          “I train every morning for four hours after breakfast,” Harper said suddenly. “We’ve only got a few weights and a sandbag, but it’s a good start. You can join me if you want.”

  
          It took Echo several seconds to realize that Harper was addressing her; proposing to train with her, to spend time in her company. She was so absorbed by the proposition that she neglected to give a reply. Raven and Monty had cut their conversation short in order to observe the exchange.

  
          “We’ve also got a few practice firearms,” added Harper. “I know your people aren’t big fans, but I think it would be a good thing for you to learn to use one; who knows what we’ll find on Earth when we go back in five years?”

  
          Echo kept her opinion regarding their possible return to Earth to herself. If Skaikru wanted to hide from the truth, that was their problem. She lowered her eyes for a moment, hating to find herself the center of attention. Bellamy pushed a plate with a meager portion of food on it in front of her, and, when Echo looked up at him, he offered her a small smile, a sign of encouragement as well as of peace.

  
          “All right,” Echo murmured to Harper. “I’ll join you.”

  
          Echo would never be Skaikru; she would remain a Grounder, an Azgeda warrior, until her last breath. But this promise seemed like the start of a new alliance between herself and the sky people.

 


	2. Sky Murmurs

85 days

          Eighty-four days. Or had it been eighty-five? They hadn’t been aboard the Ark much more than two months, and already John was losing track of the days. If two months had started to get the better of their minds, then how could they survive five years without losing them completely? Without ever saying it, they all knew it: these five years could very well kill them. And so each tried to keep busy in their own way.

          Raven and Monty had spent their days attempting to repair the Ark’s radio once they’d finished fixing up the hydraulic farms. The thought of eating nothing but algae for five years was so ridiculous John couldn’t even laugh about it. Space perhaps provided reason for his habitual cynicism. 

          Ever since Echo had come out of her stupor, she’d trained tirelessly each day. John got exhausted just watching her. He didn’t understand where she’d come to find all that energy, while the rest of the Ark’s inhabitants struggled to muster up the force of will just to get through their days. Harper trained with Echo some mornings, but, like the others, she tired quickly. Echo was a force of nature, inexhaustible and steady as a rock.

          Emori did what she’d been doing already on Earth; what she’d been doing all her life, in fact. She scavenged. The Ring wasn’t as big as all that, but, according to Emori, it still had plenty of nooks and crannies to explore. Clearly, the early inhabitants of the Ark had had a penchant for hiding anything and everything behind the heavy metal panels that comprised the walls of the Ring. Already, Emori had found a handful of aluminum emergency blankets, several articles of clothing, numerous journals dated back several decades, and, treasure beyond belief, an iron box filled with packets of dehydrated food. It had become their single daily moment of happiness, when, after the evening meal, Emori discharged on the table the discoveries of the day. Even a scrawled-on piece of paper became a source of wonder. Each member of the crew would try to guess at when it could have been written, who could have written it, why they’d hidden it … maybe it was a childish game, but whatever could make them forget the monotony of life on the Ring for even a moment was welcome.

          Bellamy had been going in circles these past two months. John would probably have laughed at him, if he hadn’t pitied Bellamy so much. It was evident he blamed himself for leaving Clarke on Earth, where she’d likely perished beneath the nuclear wave. Bellamy seemed aimless and completely lost among the empty hallways of the Ring; he’d tried during their first days to keep up the facade of leadership, but he hadn’t been able to keep it up for long. The truth was, now that each member of the crew knew what they had to do, they had no more need for a leader. The only thing left for Bellamy to do was wait. 

          John had been stuck in the same position as Bellamy for several weeks; he, too, had found himself going in circles without being sure of his place on the Ring. Once he’d remembered that the Ark’s library was found on the Ring, however, he’d set about reading. A lot. Only maybe fifty print books remained; all the others had been digitized, but, fortunately, John had found three reading tablets in one of the rooms. Old models, to be sure, made in another century, but they still worked. Ever since, it had been astounding to see him without a tablet in hand.

          Shortly after day sixty, when Raven had burst into the refectory with a bloody hand after injuring herself while working on the radio, another problem had posed itself.   
It was undeniable they needed a medic on the Ring. On Earth, there’d been Abby and her second, Jakson. And when Abby and Jackson hadn’t been there, Clarke had been able to look after them all. She would probably have continued to play that role had she been there with that. But fate had decided otherwise.

          Against all odds, John was the closest thing they had to a medic now, because of his history. He didn’t like to talk about it, but everyone who had grown up on the Ark around the same time same time as him knew the story, more or less. 

          Alexander Murphy had been one of the best doctors on the Ark. Abby had been names the head of the medical unit nearly twenty years prior for obvious reasons, but Alex Murphy had long worked beside her and supported her. Abby and Alex had been great friends from the start of their collaboration; their children had born within a few weeks of each other, and Alex had become Clarke’s godfather; Abby had had for godson a young Jonathan Murphy, then still calm and obedient. Clarke and John had grown up together their first few years on the Ark, until that infamous epidemic.

          John had lost his father soon enough, a tale of poorly treated flu and stolen medications, friendships quickly forgotten thanks to a merciless justice system. His mother had followed her husband, drowning in regret and alcohol, leaving him only the death of his father on his conscience. John had become a wild child, poor in school, but he’d promised to become a doctor like his father before him and to always treat patients with the utmost care, so that a story like his never happened again.

          Childhood had given way to adolescence, and John had turned from a difficult child to a cruel, unpredictable young man, stealing, sniping and fighting without ever expressing the smallest amount of remorse. His promise had long been forgotten. In any case, who would have wanted a doctor like Murphy, this contemptible urchin without a future. One way or another, he’d ended up in lockup at fourteen. Jaha hadn’t needed to search for a reason to convict him; in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Ark, he was guilty simply for existing.

          He hated the cliché, but John had to admit that Earth had given him a second chance. It had started badly, of course, because Earth had been synonymous to John with total freedom, and didn’t share with Clarke and Bellamy, the self-proclaimed queen and king of the hundred. John had escaped a totalitarian regime in space only to find one again on the group, and he hadn’t wanted to give in. In the end, he’s been falsely accused of the murder of Wells Jaha. No one had wanted to listen to him. No one had wanted to believe that a little girl had been the real killer. Everyone had agreed that John deserved to die, innocent or no.

          Things had gotten worse. The Grounders had found him, tortured him. He’d gotten his vengeance against the two boys who’d wanted to kill him. He’d tried to kill Bellamy. He’d … he’d deprived Raven of her leg.

          The Ark had returned to Earth. The adults had arrived. A good portion of the remaining members of the hundred had been captured by the Mountain Men. And yet, despite appearances, things had begun to improve for John. Sure, there had been the fiasco with Finn. Raven had gotten yet another reason to hate Murphy’s guts; he hadn’t been able to keep Finn from killing all those innocents in Tondc. He’d condemned them, in a way. Then Jaha had promised him the City of Light, if only he would follow him across the desert, beyond the ocean. And John had been naive enough, desperate enough, to obey.

          Emori had been in the middle of that desert, though, and she’d entranced him immediately – her big dark eyes, her facial tattoo, her smile, secretive yet warm. And then, she’d shown him her hand. It had surprised him; not disgusted him, but really surprised him. John had thought of the comic books his father had guarded like gold all his life, and John had read from earliest childhood. He’d thought of the superheroes who could alter their bodies to do battle. Superheroes didn’t exist in real life, but Emori had had that spark in her eyes, that aura around her; she was a warrior. She could have beaten him easily. John felt irreversibly drawn to her.

          The rest was history … the lighthouse, his descent into madness, Jaha, ALIE, the chips, Polis, Ontari, the nuclear wave, egress, space …   
  
          They’d returned to the Ark. Trapped in space for five long years. And they’d chosen John to be their medic. It was almost as ridiculous as eating only algae until their return to Earth, but it was what they had decided, unanimously, and, if there was one thing from which John didn’t back away, it was his responsibility. Especially when it concerned his own survival, or that of Emori.  
  
          “Murphy? What’re you doing there?” 

          The voice pulled Murphy from his most boring reading:  _ Treating Blood Infections _ , by a certain Doctor J. Smith, who had presumably been a better doctor than he was a writer. John raised his eyes from his reading tablet and met Raven’s own dark gaze. She carried a heavy box full of tools at arm’s length.

          “Reading,” Murphy replied. He yawned.”

          “Again? You’re indefatigable.” Raven advanced into the room, tools rattling in the box as she moved. “Why here?”

          A few days ago, John had settled into the ancient control room of the Ark. Reading his medical texts, and actually  _ understanding _ them, was extremely challenging, and he needed to isolate himself. “It’s calm. Most of the time,” he added with a smile, to which Raven responded with a pout before setting the box down in such a way as to maximize the noise it made. John looked up at the ceiling.   


          "If you’re willing to set your book down for a few minutes, I need help.”

          John let out a laugh of surprise. “I think you’ve got me confused with Monty, Raven. I’m not gonna be able to help you repair the radio.” If science and medicine had finally started to reveal their secrets to him, the same was not the case with technology and electronics.  
  
          “Yeah, you can. Come here.” Raven tilted her head, inviting him to approach. Sighing, John shut down the tablet and went towards Raven. “Put your hands out, palms up … farther apart. There.” Smiling, she placed the heavy box of tools in John’s hands.

          “What do I do with it?” John asked.  
  
          Raven indicated a corner of the room behind one of the control panels. “Put it there.”  
  
          “Seriously? It’s like, five feet from you, Raven,” John groaned, but the protest was just for show. He was prepared to do that for Raven. He would have carried the box from one side of the Ark to the other if she’d asked it of him. She had a right to ask it of him. Even with her brace, walking was a chore for Raven, and, although she didn’t admit it, the rest of the crew knew and discreetly did what they could to make things easier for her.  
  
          Raven thanked John and quickly uncscrewed the bolts that kept the metal plaque behind the command panel in place.  She muttered a curse at the mass of wires and diodes before her. “Hey, Murphy,” she said, “sit with me awhile. You’re going to help me untangle all these wires.”  
  
          John complied without complaint; he had no desire to go back to his reading right away, anyways. For two weeks now he’d lived with his nose buried in one or the other of the few medical texts he’d found on the Ring. From the moment he woke to the moment he went to sleep, he read. He read during meals, he read while wandering the Ring, he read whenever he could, seeming even more antisocial than he was. It felt like even Emori had begun to worry about his behavior, but there was nothing he could do. There was no one on the Ring who could teach him to be a medic if not his books.

          Sitting on the floor in comfortable silence, John and Raven worked at untangling the command panel’s cables  so that Raven could install the electronic box on which she had been working for days now. John had understood nothing of her explanations but, according to Raven, it was the last step in repairing the radio; if it didn’t work, there was nothing else to do.  
  
          John appreciated the moment of calm. After everything that had happened between himself and Raven on Earth, he was happy to share this moment with her. He had to admit he enjoyed the mechanic’s company. She and Emori were actually quite similar after a fashion. They were calm, reserved at first glance, but neither of them lacked courage or determination. Emori had survival so much in her blood she made John look like a martyr. She would do whatever it took to survive; it was what she had been doing all her life. Raven demonstrated the same aggressive will when it came to attempting to understand and solve problems.

           “You know, I’m happy you’re here, Murphy.” Raven’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, and her words and tone took him by surprise. “I knew I was going to return to space. I thought I’d just make one last trip to watch the Earth flare up. But I’m happy we’re here together on the Ark. It’s a good end to the story, don’t you think?”   
  
          John met Raven’s eyes, and what he saw frightened him; there was resignation, fatality, in Raven’s gaze. He didn’t like that. “It’s not the end,” he said. “We’ll return to Earth.”  
  
          “Aren’t you supposed to be the pessimist of the group?” Raven asked with an amused smile.

          John lowered his head to look at the cluster of wires in his hands and took up his work again. Wire after wire. Yes, he’d always been the pessimist, but ironically, now that there was almost no hope left, he wanted to believe. 

          “There’s no reason to be pessimistic,” he told Raven after a moment. “You’re here, right? And Monty. You’ll find a way to get us back to Earth somehow. And you’ve got five years to think about it.”  
  
          “Sounds like five fantastic years.” Raven’s voice dripped with sarcasm. She leaned over the crate she’d brought in with her and returned with a small box that looked to be made of several different electronic components. She grabbed one of the cables John had untangled and plugged it in to one of outlets on the box. Nothing happened, but Raven appeared neither surprised nor malcontened.

          “I’m happy, too,” John said, because the tone of this conversation seemed confessional. “Emori’s here. She’s adapted quickly to life on the Ring. More quickly than Echo, anyways. He paused, uncertain, for a moment. And then … ah, fuck, if he didn’t say it now, a better time might never come. “And … well … I felt guilty leaving you alone on Becca’s island. You said it was what you wanted – to go back into space one last time. But when we got to Polis, I couldn’t get the image out of my head. You, alone on the island, waiting to die.”  
  
          “Murphy …”

           He didn’t dare look her in the eyes this time. “I’m happy you decided to come with us. To survive with us.”  
  
           Raven’s response was wordless; for a single moment, she put her hand on John’s forearm, a silent thanks. John was grateful for it. Then, in silence she returned to connecting the wires of the command panel to the small box.

          Several minutes passed, John finishing detangling the cables and Raven fiddling with her box. “That one,” she told him, finally, indicating the red wire in his hand. “Once it’s connected, we’ll have our answer.” 

          The atmosphere of the room shifted instantly, everything around them freezing. Despite himself, John felt his heart beating forcefully against his ribs, and he suspected that Raven must feel the same. She’d been working on repairing the radio for weeks, had been waiting for this moment for far longer than himself. It was the moment of truth. She took the red wire John offered her and plugged it into an outlet in the top of the box. There was a light click, then a fizzle, weak, but very must present. John and Raven exchanged a worried look.  
  
          “It works!” Raven exclaimed suddenly, so happy she seemed to be on the point of tears. “It works, Murphy! We repaired the radio!” She sprang up as if the chronic pain in her knee had disappeared, and, had she been able to jump for joy, John had no doubt that she would have done so. 

          John smiled despite himself. He rose in his turn and went to the door. “I’m gonna get the others.” He ran along the long hallway of the Ring, running into Monty as Monty left the hydraulic farms. Harper and Echo were training, Emori, to John’s surprise, alongside them; although Emori had integrated quickly with Skaikru, but she’d never expressed any desire to train with the other two young women. Bellamy, presumably having heard Murphy tearing down the hall, came out of his quarters across the way from the fitness room.  
  
          “The radio’s working. Raven’s waiting for us in the control room.”  
  
          Raven was busy adjusting various settings on the command panel when they arrived. The fizzling sound was still there, stronger than before. The large screen in the room was lit up, and incomprehensible strings of numbers and letters ran across it. “I’m trying to focus in on the island,” Raven said, not lifting her eyes from the dozens of buttons and levers on the panel. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “I don’t know if their radio antenna survived, but our receiver is operational. We can get messages now.”  
  
          “If there’s still anyone down there to send them …” Bellamy’s voice was but a murmur, barely audible over the fizzling of the radio.  
  
           They all waited several minutes in that room lit uniquely by the large screen, the fizzling of the radio fading in and out. Raven furrowed her brow and hit several more buttons on the control panel. The white noise of the radio gave way to brief, almost inaudible sounds, but it was enough to get the group’s attention. “Raven?” Bellamy asked, going towards her.

          Raven hit a few buttons on her little box. “We’ve got a signal,” she said, “I’m trying to –”  
  
          “Earth to … Ark … day eighty-five. I’m …”

          The voice was distorted by the radio, but its timbre was perfectly recognizable.

          “Clarke!” Bellamy blurted; his voice echoed off the cold walls of the control room. “It’s Clarke! She’s alive!”  
  
          “I … how are you doing? I wonder … alive again. I just want to know if I’m not … alone out here.” Clarke’s words became more and more recognizable as Raven continued to adjust levers on the control panel.  
  
          Bellamy had fallen to his knees, face contorted in an expression halfway between relief and profound sadness. Raven seemed completely focused on keeping the radio’s feeble signal alive. Harper and Monty instinctively approached the screen where the signal’s geographic coordinates were inscribed, as if that would somehow bring them closer to Clarke herself as well.  
  
          “My skin’s healed entirely; there’s no trace of burns. The properties of Nightblood are _fantastic_. If only we could have … I still can’t reach the bunker at Polis. Every day’s a little longer than the last.”  
  
          “Can we talk to her? Raven, tell me we can talk to her.” Bellamy’s voice was strangled, and John glanced over at him. He was still on the ground, his eyes, anxious and hopeful all at once, fixed on Raven.

          Raven bit her lip. Bellamy stood, and John noted a flush to his cheeks. “Raven?” Bellamy asked, weakly. 

          Raven turned back to the control panel and took one of the radio communicators from its hook, then held it out to Bellamy. “You can try, but –”

          Bellamy took the device and pressed the ‘talk’ button. The green diode lit up. “Clarke?” he asked. “Clarke? Can you hear us? Clarke?”

          “–given myself two years before leaving the bunker. After that, I hope the Nightblood in my veins and the radiation suit will suffice to protect me.”  
   
          “There’s a delay between sending a message and receiving it, isn’t there? Raven?” Bellamy asked, frantic tone creeping into his voice. He spoke again into the microphone, not waiting for Raven’s response. “Clarke? Can you hear me?”  
  
          “Two years alone in a bunker. I’ll probably die of boredom here.”  
  
          “Clarke?”  
  
          “I’ll try again tomorrow … I miss you guys terribly.”  
  
          “Clarke! Answer me!”  
  
          There was a sigh, and then nothing. The fizzling started up again. “No! Clarke!” Bellamy roared into the microphone.  
  
          “That won’t do any good, Bellamy. She cut communication,” Monty said softly, approaching Bellamy.  
  
          “Why won’t it work? Why can’t we talk to her?” Bellamy demanded, turning on Raven, who seemed near tears. “Raven?”

          Raven sniffled and looked away. She took her head in her hands, leaning against the control panel for support. “The Ark’s transmitter was destroyed,” she said, her voice weak and broken. I noticed it when I surveyed the exterior of the Ring.”

          “Repair it, then!”   
  
          Raven drew herself up to her full height and approached Bellamy, brow furrowed and eyes  shining with unshed tears. “You don’t think I’ve tried! I’ve been working on the radio since we finished setting up the farms! I knew we could fix the receiver, but the transmitter … it’s impossible.”

          “Please, Raven … try again.” Bellamy’s tone was that of a supplicant, as if his life depended on Raven’s acceptance of his request. He took Raven by the shoulders. “Please.”

          “I’m sorry.” Raven was crying now, her tears forming gleaming rivulets beneath her eyes. John felt his heart crack in his chest despite himself. “We can receive messages from Clarke, but we can’t send them. There’s nothing I can do.” She shifted out of Bellamy’s grip and stormed from the room.  
  
          Echo and Emori left soon after Raven, as if they felt themselves strangers to the delinquents’ hopelessness. Harper approached Bellamy and wrapped her arms around him for a moment before taking her own leave. Monty put a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, as Bellamy passed a hand over his wet eyes.” Monty left the room then, John following him.

          John turned around a moment in the doorway before he left. Bellamy was collapsed in one of the chairs, his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with his sobs.

          The door closed.


End file.
